Cost-Buster Cooking: You don't need to be Julia to master French sauces

Wednesday

Feb 5, 2014 at 12:01 AM

Rich and elaborate sauces are almost synonymous with classic French cooking, and one of the most useful to know is hollandaise. Ellen Brown shares a recipe

By Ellen Brown

Rich and elaborate sauces are almost synonymous with classic French cooking, and one of the most useful to know is hollandaise. It’s this thick and rich egg yolk and butter sauce — slightly tangy from lemon juice — that crowns many brunch dishes made with poached eggs, glorifies green vegetables like asparagus and broccoli, and with substituting a few ingredients is transformed into béarnaise sauce to elegantly top a steak.

In Auguste Escoffier’s “Le Guide Culinare,” first published in 1903, he credits the development of classic French sauces to famed French chef Marie-Antonin Carême, who was chef to Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I. Escoffier wrote that “the culinary preparations of current day France date only from the early part of the nineteenth century, and on this point as on many others, the culinary arts owes much to Carême.”

Escoffier, the most famous chef of the early 20th century, then condensed Carême’s many recipes into five “mother sauces” from which there are almost endless variations referred to as “daughter sauces.” One whole family tree belongs to hollandaise.

Making hollandaise used to take the place of a workout at the gym until the invention of the blender. There was a lot of continual whisking while incorporating the hot butter into the egg yolks to create the emulsion. An emulsion is any dish that stays together although its component parts characteristically would separate. Vinaigrette dressings are a temporary emulsion because the oil and vinegar will separate after a few minutes. But, when properly made, a hollandaise sauce stays thick and luxurious.

The first step of making the sauce is to clarify the butter to remove the dairy solids and liquid. Butter legally must contain 80 percent fat, and much European butter is as high as 85 percent fat. The remainder is liquid and dairy solids that should be removed because they will thin the sauce.

The easiest way is to melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepan and then allow it to reach room temperature before chilling it, discarding the foam from the top of the butter. The fat floats, the liquids sink, and you can just pull off the hardened clarified butter and discard what remains in the pan. If you don’t have the time to chill it, then melt it, remove the foam, and allow it to sit for 5 minutes. Then very slowly pour the butter into a container, leaving the liquid behind.

The only other trick to perfect hollandaise is to add the butter incredibly slowly at the beginning of the blending process. It should literally be by amounts of about one teaspoon until at least half of the butter has been added. You can then speed up a bit.

Cost-Buster Cooking tips

The easiest way to separate eggs is by breaking them into your hand and allowing the egg white to slip through your fingers. But if you want to be able to use the whites for meringue make sure your hands are totally free from grease, as well as clean.

If you don’t want to use the egg whites within a few days, freeze them. Pour them into freezer containers, seal tightly, label with the number of egg whites, and freeze. For faster thawing and easier measuring, first freeze each white in an ice cube tray and then transfer to a freezer container.

Even though the blades of the blender will warm the egg yolks slightly, I’ve learned during cold winter months that filling the beaker with very hot tap water for a few minutes aids the process a lot.

If you’re using salted butter rather than unsalted, do not add any additional salt to the recipe.

The way to hold the sauce for service for a few hours is to heat the inside of a Thermos container with very hot tap water, then drain it well and pour in the sauce.

Ellen Brown, founding food editor of USA Today, is the author of 40 cookbooks, including “Mac and Cheese: More than 80 Classic and Creative Versions of the Ultimate Comfort Food” (Running Press, 2012). She lives in Providence. E-mail her at cost.buster.cooking@gmail.com.

Hollandaise Sauce

10 ounces (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

4 large egg yolks, at room temperature

3 tablespoons lemon juice

Salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

Melt the butter slowly in a small saucepan over low heat. Discard the foam from the top and allow it to sit for 5 minutes. Pour it slowly into a bowl, leaving the milky residue and liquid behind. Discard the residue, wash out the saucepan, and return the saucepan to the stove over low heat.

Add the egg yolks, lemon juice, salt and pepper to a warmed blender beaker. Blend the yolk mixture for 20 seconds at medium speed. Remove the plug from the center of the cover. Reduce the speed of the blender to medium-low and very slowly drizzle in the hot butter with the blender continually running. Once all the butter is incorporated, continue to beat the sauce for an additional 20 seconds.

Adjust the seasoning with additional lemon juice or salt as needed. Serve immediately.

Note: The sauce can be made up to 3 hours in advance and kept in a warmed insulated Thermos container.